That is why I say this struggle is one about values. Our values are worth struggling for. They represent humanity's progress throughout the ages and at each point we have had to fight for them and defend them. As a new age beckons, it is time to fight for them again.
In a speech to the World Affairs Council in Los Angeles, the Prime Minister said "a complete renaissance of our strategy" is needed to deal with the situation.Mr Blair said he had planned his speech for several weeks and not as a reaction to the crisis in Lebanon.But he focused on the actions of Hizbollah and Israel and said: "The purpose of the provocation that began the conflict was clear."It was to create chaos, division and bloodshed to provoke retaliation by Israel that would lead to Arab and Muslim opinion being inflamed not against those who started the aggression but against those who responded to it."Mr Blair said it was possible to emerge from the Middle East conflict with more hopes for "moderation" succeeding over "extremism" in the future.But he added: "To defeat it will need an alliance of moderation that paints a different future in which Muslim, Jew and Christian, Arab and Western, wealthy and developing nations can make progress in peace and harmony with each other."We will not win the battle against this global extremism unless we win it at the level of values as much as force, unless we show we are even handed, fair and just in our application of those values to the world."Unless we reappraise our strategy, unless we revitalise the broader global agenda on poverty, climate change, trade and in respect of the Middle East, bend every sinew of our will to make peace between Israel and Palestine we will not win and this is a battle we must win."
Originally posted by Furball but you gotta give him credit. he is an amazing public speaker....
Originally posted by Sandman Anything less than an amazing public speaker could not survive the House of Commons.Man... I wish we had one of those here.
Originally posted by Furball You ever watch Prime Ministers Questions?Great entertainment. I hate to admit it, but it seems I do have some admiration for Blair, he is brilliant at it.http://www.number10.gov.uk/output/page306.asp
Originally posted by ChickenHawk Yes, I've seen it and it's a pleasure to watch the artful banter. I have often wished we had something similar in the states.
But in another sign of Hezbollah's growing political clout, U.N. Deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown contested characterizations of the Lebanese militia as a terrorist organization in the mold of al-Qaeda and challenged the U.S. diplomatic approach to the crisis. In remarks published Wednesday, he told the Financial Times: "It's not helpful to couch this war in the language of international terrorism."He said that while Hezbollah "employs terrorist tactics," it is "an organization whose roots historically are completely separate and different from al-Qaeda."
A Hezbollah suicide bomber murdered 241 American military personnel in Lebanon in 1983. In 1985, Hezbollah hijacked a TWA airliner to Lebanon and tortured and killed an American sailor. In 1988, Hezbollah kidnapped an American officer assigned to the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon and tortured and murdered him.
